


crushed little stars

by disabledzuko



Series: i'll find a new place to be from [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (although it starts in suki's pov and ends in sokka's pov so like. just trust me on this), (the getting back together is zukka. the established relationship is sukka), ATLAofColor, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Racial Capitalism (i'm kidding but i'm also not), Anxiety, Being an Asshole, Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), Coming of Age, Diaspora, Established Relationship, Ex-Boyfriends to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Friends to Lovers, GNC Sokka, Gay Zuko (Avatar), Getting Back Together, Implied/Referenced Underage, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Multi, POV Zuko (Avatar), Polyamory, Slice of Life, Smoking, The Existential Dread of Being in Your Twenties, but in a way that honors + respects + loves jet, previous jetko, well more like, zuko dresses like a lesbian bc it's MY fic and I get to decide what he wears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28181517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disabledzuko/pseuds/disabledzuko
Summary: "I don’t know why everyone complains about third-wheeling, Zuko thought, dreamily, dizzily. I’m having the time of my life."a zukki modern AU in which zuko and suki are roommates, suki and sokka are dating, and zuko and sokka are ex-boyfriends who still have crushes on each other
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Suki/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Suki & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: i'll find a new place to be from [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2064471
Comments: 50
Kudos: 288





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone! it's slow electric dawn 2: slow electric bugaloo! 2 slow 2 electric! but in all seriousness, welcome to the sequel, set five years later.
> 
> if you are here for the first time and you don't want to read the first fic in the series (which is a high school AU about coming out), here's a speedrun of what happened: zuko and sokka started dating in junior year of high school. they were both good friends with suki, who was planning on graduating a year early to go to college in new york. zuko started living at iroh's, but he maintained a love-hate sibling relationship with azula, who continued to live at their father's. this all happened in new jersey, but sokka and his family are originally from alaska. 
> 
> this fic has different vibes from slow electric dawn, mostly because the characters have grown up and developed. if slow electric dawn was zuko being like "oh shit i'm gay. what should i do?," crushed little stars is zuko being like "oh shit i'm an asshole to everyone who tries to get close to me. what should i do?"
> 
> enjoy!!

Suki graduated college before she was legally allowed to drink. As the few other early graduates were celebrating and getting wasted at overpriced New York bars, Suki was packing for her new job in Chicago. She signed the lease on a two-bedroom apartment near Chinatown with a girl she met through some Facebook group, and she moved in the week after graduation, in April. Her new roommate wasn’t going to move in until September, so in the meantime, Suki lived alone. In the summer, she would get a subletter. That subletter was Zuko.

Zuko and Suki had been friends since high school. He’d ended up going to a liberal arts college not too far from New York, so they’d kept in touch throughout college, occasionally visiting each other and blowing off schoolwork to do fun stuff, like go to the zoo (Zuko’s idea) or hockey games (Suki’s idea). Although Zuko still had one more year of college, he was going to spend the summer living in Chicago with Suki.

In the three months Suki spent in Chicago before Zuko came, Suki felt simultaneously too busy and not busy enough. In college, she’d had friends, she had taekwondo, she had internships and jobs. Now she had reality cooking shows, sleep, and endless hours of staring at words on a screen. Occasionally, she saw Sokka. Usually, she was alone.

In the first week of June, Suki went to the airport to meet Zuko as he landed. She was standing by the airport’s baggage collection when she spotted him. His hair was even longer than when she’d last seen it, tied into a messy bun, and he was dragging a large black suitcase behind him. He looked tired, but he smiled and waved when he saw Suki. He walked over to Suki and let her throw her arms around his shoulders, shaking him gently.

“It’s so good to see you!” Suki exclaimed.

“It’s good to see you too,” Zuko replied. His arms were still holding his bags, but he leaned into the hug. “Thank you for meeting me at the airport.”

“Of course!” Suki said, pulling away and smiling at Zuko. “My apartment is pretty hard to find if you’ve never been here before. Let me take that.” She grabbed the handle of Zuko’s suitcase, which wasn’t as heavy as she expected, and led Zuko to the trains.

This was the first time they’d seen each other in person for about a year. They’d not even talked that much this year either. Suki had been busy with internships and TAing and her thesis, and Zuko had been busy being Zuko and never texting first, so it was nice to properly catch up. On the train, Suki told Zuko about her new job at the newspaper (difficult), what it was like being graduated from college (amazing), and what places they should visit in the city together over the summer (everywhere!).

“And what about you?” she asked. “Are you doing okay?”

Zuko blinked. It was one of his tells, and Suki immediately realized she’d hit upon sore territory.

“You mean because of Jet?” Zuko said. He was obviously trying to act nonchalant, but his stiff posture gave him away. “I’m okay.”

“Oh,” Suki said. “That’s good.”

Zuko wrinkled his nose and shrugged.

“Tell me about your fellowship,” Suki said, changing the subject.

Zuko had received a grant from his college to spend his summer translating a collection of postwar Japanese poetry into English. It was work he could do wherever he had internet access and a Japanese-English dictionary, but he’d agreed to come live with Suki in Chicago. He could have stayed with Iroh or found an apartment closer to home or even gone to visit Azula in California, but no, Zuko had volunteered his summer and half his stipend to visit an old friend. Suki was overjoyed.

After an El transfer and a bus ride, they arrived at Suki’s new apartment building: a red-brick townhouse with stone front steps. Her apartment was the on the third floor, which meant they had to lug Zuko’s suitcase up two flights of stairs. Well, Suki did most of the lugging—she held the handle, while Zuko just helped balance the bag from below.

Suki was pretty pleased with her new apartment. It got a lot of light, and it wasn’t too expensive, by Chicago standards. The bedrooms were on opposite sides of the apartment, with the front door opening straight into the living room, kitchen, and dining room, which merged into one open space. Suki showed Zuko to his room, which was pretty sparsely furnished: just a twin-size bed and a chest of drawers.

“Do you want to order takeout for dinner?” Suki asked him, as he lay his suitcase on the floor.

“Sure,” Zuko said.

“Do you want me to choose?”

“Yes please,” Zuko said. Suki smiled. She didn’t know a lot about Zuko’s now-ex-boyfriend Jet, but she did recall a memorable phone call, during which Zuko had complained about Jet always asking Zuko to make decisions, allegedly just to piss Zuko off. Instead of just choosing a movie, he would sit on a couch, watching as Zuko scrolled through Netflix for twenty minutes as “some kind of perverse decision-making exposure therapy.” Zuko’s words, not hers.

Suki ended up ordering Chinese. They were basically in Chinatown, anyway. She even remembered Zuko’s boba order: rosehip milk tea with boba. She sat on Zuko’s bed as he unpacked.

“What is it you actually do for work?” Zuko asked, sitting on the floor and folding his shirts into a pile.

“It’s mostly just nitty-gritty grammar stuff,” Suki told him. “I read articles before they go out to print and make sure there aren’t any errors. Sometimes, I do fact-checking, but usually that kind of work goes through someone else.”

“Oh,” Zuko said. “Cool.”

Suki snorted.

“Honestly, the job is pretty stressful,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Not because it’s hard, but because I don’t know if this is really what I want to do?”

“What, journalism?”

Suki sighed. “Journalism at a big newspaper. Like, sure it’s prestigious, but there’s so much bureaucracy and red tape and clueless liberalism. I don’t know if I’m like helping anyone with the kind of work I’m doing. And I’m only one of two people of color in my entire department.” She sighed again. She’d only articulated her thoughts about this out loud once before, with Sokka. Who she was _not_ going to bring up in front of Zuko yet.

“Oh, wow,” Zuko said. “How big is your department?”

“Thirty? Forty? It hasn’t been a problem yet, because I’ve only been there for like three months, but I just don’t know how long I’m going to make it, if literally everyone at a higher level than editorial assistant is white.”

“But you’re amazing,” Zuko said, looking up at Suki. “You’re, like, the smartest person I know.”

Suki sighed. “Thanks, Zuko. But you’re also friends with a bunch of dumbasses.”

Zuko’s lip twitched, as he tried and failed to look indignant. “Excuse me!” he said. “For your information, you’re my only friend.”

Suki laughed. It was good to see him again.

\--

The beginning of summer seized Zuko like a bad cramp.

Jet had dumped him the week before finals. The timing was gracious enough that Zuko was mad he couldn’t be mad about it.

Zuko was a Comparative Literature major, so all his finals that semester were papers. He wrote these over the course of a week, mostly while crying in his dorm room. Every hour or so, he left his dorm to stand in front of the building entrance and smoke a cigarette in the time it took for Mitski’s _Your Best American Girl_ to play twice on repeat, before he headed back inside to work and cry some more.

The whole situation was a mess. Jet wasn’t even American.

“Sometimes, people are broken and their jagged edges fit together,” Jet had said to Zuko on their last night together. He always waxed poetic when telling Zuko something Zuko didn’t want to hear. “And sometimes, those jagged edges just end up making the other more broken.”

“I can fit,” Zuko replied, desperately. “I can make us fit together.”

Jet sighed. They were sitting on the floor of Zuko’s dorm room, the cheap overhead lighting glaring against their faces and making them look older.

“You’re not a broken bone, Zuko,” Jet said. “You can’t just keep breaking yourself and hope you’re going to heal right this time.”

“Shut up with the metaphors,” Zuko said. “Do you love me?”

Jet’s jaw clenched. “No,” he said. Then he left.

And thus ended Zuko’s junior year of college, his second romantic relationship, and his short-lived membership of his college’s Organization of Young Socialists, of which Jet was the lead organizer.

Zuko woke up on his first day in Chicago at six. His room didn’t have curtains yet, so the sunlight drenched his pillow and made his hair warm before he was even conscious. He got up, quietly, and did his stretches, trying to ignore the creaks of the wooden floorboards.

Zuko had never been to Chicago before this summer; he’d never been anywhere west of Pennsylvania, unless you counted a trip to Japan his family had taken when he and Azula were very young. But maybe that was east. He couldn’t remember which way the plane had gone around the world—he’d spent the whole plane ride with his face buried in his mother’s shoulder.

While he stretched, he went through his mental rolodex of worries. It was a habit he’d picked up in college, and he wasn’t sure if it made him more or less neurotic to start each morning by considering each of his anxieties, one at a time.

First, he thought about how he needed to find a pharmacy to send his anti-anxiety medication, which meant he also had to call his psychiatrist, which he hated doing and probably wasn’t going to do until it was too late. He thought about how Suki might get sick of him over the summer from overexposure, how it was totally ridiculous that Zuko had received a grant to translate poetry when he barely spoke any Japanese and he’d basically just scammed his way into a summer vacation. He thought about how Jet had broken up with Zuko because Zuko was, at his core, a deeply unlovable person who always left hair ties in other people’s beds.

In fact, Zuko was so busy freaking out about everything else, that it took him several reiterations of his usual anxieties to remember that he was in Chicago. The city where Sokka lived. Zuko felt his foot cramp up. Sometimes he felt like the unluckiest person in the world.

He heard Suki in the kitchen at around seven-thirty, so he got dressed and went out to see her. She was standing by the toaster, dressed in a white shirt and dark slacks. It was strange to see her so… office-y. She smiled at Zuko and pointed at the coffee pot. Zuko nodded vigorously.

“You look nice,” Zuko said, opening cupboards to try to find where the mugs were kept.

Suki rolled her eyes. “Shut up,” she said. “I’m two seconds away from flexing this shirt to shreds.”

“Do you still do taekwondo?”

“Not since college,” Suki said, buttering a slice of toast. “I miss it. I feel so…” She bounced up and down in her white socks.

“Well, if you ever need to let off some steam, I’d be happy to let you kick my ass behind the dumpsters,” Zuko offered.

Suki smiled. “Thanks, Zuko,” she said, clasping a hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good friend.”

Then, she bit into her toast, and scurried out the door, leaving Zuko alone in the apartment.

It was his first day in Chicago, so he decided to do some sightseeing instead of any real work.

After some internet searches and route calculators, he took a bus to the Art Institute to see some art. Some of the paintings he recognized, which made him feel quietly proud, until he saw that everyone else was also crowded around those paintings. He spent some time walking around the East Asian collection because he knew it would make his mother happy, but he honestly didn’t have a clue about art.

At noon, he got a Chicago-style hot dog from a street vendor. He couldn’t understand how a hot dog could feature every primary color, but it was a three-dollar lunch, so he didn’t complain.

In the afternoon, Zuko looked at his reflection in The Bean. He couldn’t understand what the big deal was. He saw his reflection every day. Zuko really didn’t get art.

It was around five-thirty, when Zuko decided he’d had enough of tourist activities for one lifetime, that he arrived back at the apartment. It took him a moment to remember which building on the street was Suki’s, but when he did, he noticed someone was sitting at the top of the front steps.

Zuko wondered for a moment if it was a neighbor who’d forgotten their keys. They had long dark hair and were wearing a navy-blue tank top, shorts, and flipflops. Zuko got closer, and then realized he knew this person. It was his ex-boyfriend. The non-Jet one. The first one.

“Sokka?”

Zuko wished he wasn’t wearing what Smellerbee had once termed his “lesbian Tivas.” Though, to be fair, Sokka was wearing flipflops. What was worse, Tivas or flipflops?

“Oh, hi,” Sokka said, looking down and giving Zuko a sheepish wave. There was a moment where Zuko thought Sokka was going to say something else, but he didn’t. He just put his hand down, awkwardly, and stood up.

“You’re here to see Suki,” Zuko said, walking up the front steps. It wasn’t a question, although it felt like one.

“Yeah,” Sokka said. “Is that okay?” He was taller than Zuko remembered. He must have had a late growth spurt.

“Yes, it’s fine,” Zuko replied. He fumbled with his keys, still not familiar with which one went in which lock. He opened the front door. “Come on in.”

Sokka followed Zuko silently up the building stairs and into the apartment. Zuko closed the door behind them. They looked at each other in the living room. Zuko felt a sheen of sweat on his skin from the summer humidity.

“So, how—" “What are—”

Sokka chuckled.

“How have you been, Zuko?” he asked.

“I’m in Chicago doing poetry translation for my fellowship,” Zuko said, before mentally kicking himself. That wasn’t an actual answer. At the same time, did he really want to tell his ex who he hadn’t seen in three years that he hyperventilates in the shower most mornings?

“That’s awesome,” Sokka said, and he sounded like he meant it. Asshole. “I’m working a research job at my university’s geophysics department at the moment.”

“Cool,” Zuko said.

There was a moment of silence.

“Do you want a glass of water?” Zuko asked.

“That’s okay,” Sokka said. “I can get it.” He walked over to the kitchen and immediately opened the cupboard with the glasses. He took the Brita filter out of the fridge and filled himself a cup. He looked comfortable in this apartment in a way that Zuko wasn’t, and Zuko actually lived here. Zuko started to feel warm with annoyance.

“Do you want one?” Sokka asked.

“I’m okay,” Zuko said, even though he was actually pretty thirsty.

There was another, horrible moment where Zuko thought he was going to have to say something else, but then they both heard the key turn in the apartment lock and turned to see Suki arrive.

“Sokka?” Suki asked, the moment she opened the door.

“Hi, Suki,” Sokka greeted, smiling.

Suki was not smiling. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

Sokka glanced at Zuko, then glanced back at Suki.

“You mean, you haven’t—” he said.

“No,” Suki said.

There was a tense moment in which Suki and Sokka were looking at each other and seemingly communicating through eyebrow movements.

Zuko frowned. “What’s going on?”

Suki looked unhappy. It was making Zuko nervous. She took off her shoes and walked over to Zuko. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I was going to tell you before you came, but then the thing with Jet happened and there never seemed to be a good time…”

“Tell me what?” Zuko asked, but he felt the pieces of the story gathering in his stomach, like poorly prepared tapioca pearls sticking together in water.

“Sokka and I are dating,” Suki said.

The tapioca clump in his stomach sank.

“Oh,” Zuko said. “Cool.”

“I’m sorry you had to find out like this.” Suki glared at Sokka, who was finding the condensation on his water glass very interesting to look at.

“No, it’s cool,” Zuko said. He stretched his mouth into a smile. “I’m fine with it. I’m happy for you guys.”

“Really?” Suki asked.

“Yeah,” Zuko said, shaking his head. “I mean, you were always such good friends in high school.”

“This is new though,” Sokka said, suddenly. “It only started when Suki moved to Chicago in March, and we started hanging out in person again.”

“Great,” Zuko said. His cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling.

Suki and Sokka were looking at him with such care and concern that Zuko felt his body temperature go from warm to hot.

“I’m just gonna,” he said. And then he left to go into his room and shut the door.

Behind his door, he heard muffled voices in the kitchen, like Suki and Sokka were talking quietly. Zuko opened his phone to play some music that would assure them that he was fine and not crying in his room, but also that he was a cool person who listened to cool music. Everything on his Spotify looked so depressing, so he just put on some generic Korean indie rock that he at least knew Suki and Sokka wouldn’t be able to understand the lyrics of.

He was overthinking this. He needed to stop overthinking this.

At least the music drowned out the conversation happening in the kitchen and allowed Zuko to focus on his own thoughts, his breathing, his posture as he sat cross-legged on the floor and tried to meditate through this awkward situation.

Zuko had barely been in this city for twenty-four hours, and he already had to contend with the fact that his best friend and roommate was dating his ex-boyfriend. He wanted a smoke, but he’d very purposefully not brought any cigarettes with him to Chicago in an effort to quit. So he was stuck with meditation to get him through this. Uncle Iroh would be proud.

Zuko hadn’t seen Sokka since high school. They’d dated from junior year to the summer after senior year, when Sokka was leaving to go study engineering at a college in Chicago and Zuko was going to a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. They’d both agreed long distance was unrealistic, but they’d promised to stay friends. That’s how their relationship had started anyway, as friends.

And then Sokka had left and Zuko had stayed, and three years had passed without so much as a text between them.

Zuko didn’t have Facebook or Instagram or whatever, so he couldn’t even see what Sokka was up to in the intervening years. It would have been nice to have been warned about how hot Sokka was going to get.

Great. And now he was thirsting after his roommate’s boyfriend, who was also his own ex-boyfriend. Post-break-up life was going wonderfully.

Zuko closed his eyes and started to count his breaths.

Almost a hundred breaths later, Zuko heard a knock on his door. He was tempted to ignore it, but that would have been petty and dramatic, and he was trying not to be petty or dramatic these days. He stood up and opened his door, behind which Suki was standing, wearing an apologetic expression.

“Sokka’s making fried rice for dinner,” Suki said. “Do you want some?”

Zuko hesitated. He knew a pity invitation when he saw one. “I don’t want to impose on your… time together.”

Suki rolled her eyes. “Dude, I haven’t seen you in, like, a year. I want _us_ to spend time together.”

Zuko felt his heart clench. He took a deep breath.

“Okay,” he said. He gave Suki a half-smile and followed her to the kitchen, which was filled with the comforting smell of sesame oil. Sokka was standing at the kitchen counter, stirring a spoonful of sugar into a beaten egg. He didn’t turn around.

In the moment between Zuko entering the kitchen and finding a place to stand by the counter, he found himself caught by a memory of being seventeen and inviting Sokka over for dinner. Iroh was trying to teach them both how to make tamagoyaki. Zuko kept burning his, but Sokka was able to fold the eggs neatly into soft, yellow rolls. But seventeen-year-old Zuko, competitive to the bone, couldn’t bring himself to be mad about it because of how happy Iroh and Sokka looked, chatting by the stove together.

“It smells great,” Zuko told Sokka, leaning against the kitchen counter.

“Thanks,” Sokka said, turning and smiling at Zuko. Even though his face had grown older, his smile was still that brilliant, toothy grin.

Suki walked over to Sokka. “I’m gross from the El, so I’m gonna shower real quick,” she said, kissing Sokka on the cheek, before heading to the bathroom. “Don’t burn my apartment down!” she called over her shoulder.

Zuko watched as Sokka slid a pile of vegetables from the cutting board to the frying pan. They sizzled when they hit the oil.

Zuko and Sokka both stared at the cooking vegetables.

“If this is weird, I can go,” Sokka said, suddenly.

“And leave me to finish cooking?” Zuko joked, with an awkward smile.

Sokka laughed. “Fair enough.”

“It’s not weird,” Zuko added. “Or if it is weird, it’s not your fault. I’m sorry.”

Sokka sighed. “Stop apologizing, Zuko.”

“Okay,” Zuko said. Then, because he was an asshole: “Sorry.”

Sokka rolled his eyes, stirring the vegetables. Steam rose from the pan.

“Why didn’t you ever text me?” Zuko asked. The words surprised him, but he didn’t find himself regretting them.

“Why didn’t _you_ text _me_?” Sokka retorted, still looking down at his cooking.

Zuko blinked. “Because I never text first,” Zuko said, like it was obvious.

Sokka snorted. “Yeah,” he said. He glanced at Zuko before looking back down at the pan. “Well, there’s your answer, then.”

He moved the vegetables to one side of the pan and poured the beaten egg into the other side. It started paling immediately.

“I’m going to be here the whole summer,” Zuko said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“I’d like this to not be awkward,” Zuko said. “I’d like us to be friends.”

“Me too,” said Sokka, quietly. “Zuko, I’ve always wanted to be your friend.”

The seriousness in Sokka’s voice overwhelmed Zuko with its familiarity. Zuko cleared his throat and nodded.

“Okay. Then it’s settled. We will be friends. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Okay,” said Sokka. He flipped the egg with a spatula. Its underside was golden and speckled. It was cooked perfectly.

Suki came back into the kitchen a few minutes later, her hair damp, wearing a t-shirt and boxers. She walked over to the stove and kissed Sokka on his cheek, before taking a step backward and slinging her arm around Zuko’s shoulder. He straightened his posture but otherwise didn’t react to the sudden physical contact. After a moment, he relaxed into the hug. Suki’s hair smelled nice.

“What’cha guys talk about?” Suki asked.

“You,” Sokka replied, smiling and adding rice to the frying pan.

“Good,” Suki said, shaking Zuko by the shoulders a little bit.

Zuko laughed.

Dinner was not as awkward as Zuko had been expecting it to be. Suki brought out a bottle of white wine, and Sokka spent a lot of it rambling about the coding he was doing for his research and the meteors he’d been allowed to mess around with in the lab. Zuko mostly listened. A lot of the technical jargon went over his head. At one point, he made eye contact with Suki, who was smiling with fond exasperation. Zuko was pretty sure she didn’t know what Sokka was going on about either.

Still, it was nice to eat a warm meal and spend time in the company of old friends. And it was honestly pretty sweet how passionate Sokka was about space rocks. Zuko felt a little tug of pride, remembering how nervous Sokka had been about going to university to study aerospace engineering. Clearly, he was killing it. As Zuko had always known Sokka would.

After dinner, Sokka went home. Zuko was a little surprised, considering Sokka and Suki were dating, but he realized that it was probably for Zuko’s own benefit that the couple had decided not to overwhelm him on his second night in Chicago. In his gratitude, Zuko insisted on washing the dishes, while Suki flipped through various channels on her television, feet up on the couch.

Zuko had just finished placing the final dish on the drying rack when he realized he hadn’t thought about Jet once that evening.

That week, Zuko started his translation work in earnest. He set up his laptop on the dining room table (there wasn’t a desk in the apartment) and steadily drank through a pot of coffee a day. He ate lunch on the sofa to give himself a break from sitting at the dining room table and then moved back to the table to work in the afternoons.

Because Zuko wasn’t actually fluent in Japanese or, for that matter, good at poetry, he decided that the best thing to do would be to write as many translations of the same poems as possible, using every variation of every possible translation of each word, and then he would sort through and find the best poems. He imagined it like the thought experiment: if an infinite number of monkeys typed on an infinite number of typewriters, one of them would write the complete works of Shakespeare. If a caffeinated Zuko wrote for 90 days straight, he would eventually produce a collection of decent poetry. Right?

In the evenings, Suki came home from work and flopped on the sofa. Zuko, still juiced up from the coffee, would offer to cook dinner. Like writing poetry, cooking was something Zuko didn’t have a natural talent for, but he stoically pushed himself to a place of dignified mediocrity.

On Thursday, Suki didn’t come back to the apartment because she was spending the night at Sokka’s. Zuko spent the evening rearranging her spice rack and cleaning the bathroom. Then he sat down on the couch, his hands dry from the cleaning fluid, and took out his phone.

There were only two rings before Uncle Iroh picked up.

“Zuko! It’s so good to hear from you,” Iroh greeted, warmly. “How is the windy city?”

“Hot,” Zuko replied, honestly. “Not enough wind.”

“How is Suki?”

“Oh, she’s fine,” Zuko said, scratching at a mosquito bite on his knee. “You know. Busy.”

“I was a little worried when I didn’t hear from you after your school ended,” Iroh said, cautiously. “Did everything turn out okay?”

“Yes, my papers went well.”

“And you? Are you also well?”

Zuko stopped scratching his mosquito bite and tapped his fingers on the armrest of the sofa. “Yeah. I think so,” he said, and it didn’t feel like a lie, even if it sounded like one.

“Wonderful,” Iroh replied.

They talked about Iroh’s garden, where he was having some trouble with a neighborhood cat, and Zuko’s poetry collection, where he was having trouble with everything. As they talked, the apartment grew dimmer and pinker, the sun setting behind the red-brick buildings through the window.

“I miss you,” Iroh said, after Zuko had made another complaint about the English language.

“I miss you too,” Zuko said.

“I hope you don’t forget about me when you’re a famous poet,” Iroh said, laughing a little through the phone.

Zuko rolled his eyes. “Pretty much nobody’s a famous poet, so I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

“Then, I hope you don’t forget about yourself either.”

“What?”

“I’m so proud of you,” Iroh said. “You make me prouder every day.”

“Oh.” Zuko flushed. He switched his phone from his right hand to his left, then remembered to reply, “Thank you. I love you.”

He could almost hear Iroh’s smile through the phone. “I love you too.”

It was getting easier for Zuko to say it. He’d been saying it to Uncle Iroh for the past four years, but it still felt unnatural and clunky in his mouth, like he needed more practice. For the brief semester that Zuko had actually seen a therapist, she’d told him that communication was a muscle that had to be exercised.

That was okay. Zuko was used to working to become good at things.

After he and Uncle hung up, Zuko opened his text messages. Without really thinking about what he was doing, he texted Sokka.

_Zuko: Hello! I’m texting you first._

He watched the blue bubble form, the word “Delivered” appear. Then he blinked. Why did he do that? Sokka was right now in the midst of a date with his girlfriend. Why the fuck would Zuko text Sokka at this moment? What was wrong with him?

The text remained in its blue bubble on the phone screen. There was nothing to be done about it now.

Zuko put his phone into airplane mode, before placing it facedown on the coffee table. He immediately decided to distract himself from his own idiocy by turning on the television. Thankfully, something very dramatic was happening on the first channel he turned to, so Zuko let his attention get grabbed by the gasps and ominous musical stings of reality TV. A few hours later, after Zuko had become fully invested in the lives of the people working on yachts, he went to bed.

The next morning, Zuko turned his phone off airplane mode to listen to his morning playlist, and he suddenly received four texts in quick succession.

_Sokka: hi!!_

_Sokka: [Attachment.jpg]_

_Sokka: this tortoise is you_

_Sokka: the strawberry is masaoka shiki’s theory that it will eventually become impossible to write a new poem with traditional forms_

Zuko laughed. Sokka had attached a picture of a small tortoise violently attacking a strawberry. It was very cute. Sokka had remembered Zuko’s slightly wine-tipsy rant about 20th century Japanese literary theory from dinner his first night in Chicago. He’d even remembered the name of the critic. Zuko knew Sokka had always had an exceptionally good memory, but it was strange to be reminded of it, now, after all this time.

_Zuko: Thank you. I’m honored._

Slowly, and with great deliberation on Zuko’s part, Zuko and Sokka started texting.

They hadn’t really texted a whole lot in high school (there was no point when they could just drive or bike to see the other person whenever they wanted), so it didn’t feel overly familiar or weird. Mostly, Sokka sent Zuko pictures of animals or people doing silly things, and Zuko sent screenshots of weird or funny facts he found while doing research for his poetry collection.

When Sokka came over, which was around twice a week, he and Zuko chatted amicably, to Suki’s apparent relief.

One night in late June, Suki and Zuko were eating takeout curry for dinner, when Suki said: “So, you and Sokka are getting along well.”

Zuko took a careful sip of his water. “Yeah.”

“I’m glad,” Suki said. That was something Zuko liked about her. She always told him how she felt about something. Then, she added: “You should tell him to stop eating all my ice cream.”

“Why can’t you tell him?” Zuko demanded.

Suki sighed, slicing a potato chunk in half with her spoon. “I’m too close to the situation,” she said.

As the summer drew on, Zuko started to feel like he was working on two projects: his poetry collection and his friendship with Sokka. This was significant because Zuko didn’t really have any male friends.

To be fair, he didn’t really have any friends at all, but he considered himself close with Suki and a few of the girls in his program and his sister Azula. The last male friend he’d had was Jet, and everyone knew how that had ended. This was a good exercise for Zuko—being close with a guy without sleeping with him. If this was a class, he’d be getting full credit.

Well, partial credit. Zuko had, technically, slept with Sokka, once, during senior year of high school. It had been awkward and bad, and Zuko kept apologizing for it being so awkward and bad, which made it more awkward and worse, and after a while, they just gave up and watched an episode of _Naruto_. They never tried again, and four months later, Sokka took a plane to Chicago, and he and Zuko didn’t speak for three years.

_Friday, July 2nd, 11:48am_

_Sokka: ……………._

_Zuko: ?_

_Sokka: so the ac unit in my apt just broke_

_Zuko: Do you want to come over? You can work here._

_Sokka: do you mind_

_Zuko: Not at all. Text me when you arrive._

Between their text conversation and Sokka coming over, Zuko got no work done. He paced the apartment, checked and double-checked the temperature on the living-room air-conditioning unit, and ate a granola bar standing over the kitchen sink to catch all the crumbs. This was the first time Sokka and he were spending time together alone in the apartment, and Zuko was not going to be weird about it.

About half an hour later, Sokka rang the doorbell and entered the apartment. He was wearing a loose tank top that had a drawing of a lightbulb saying “TURN DOWN FOR WATT” and he was very sweaty.

Because Zuko was being good, he did not stare at Sokka’s shiny chest. He just sat back down at the dining room table and focused his attention on his open Microsoft Word document.

“I’m gonna…” Sokka said, before going to the bathroom. A few moments later, Zuko heard the sound of the shower running.

To distract himself, Zuko rearranged the line breaks of two whole poems. The words swam around the page, hideous and unmoored. The poems got worse.

Sokka came out into the dining room with a towel wrapped around his waist. Zuko took one look at him, before turning back to his laptop screen and reading his mutilated poems over and over to himself like a mantra. Sokka disappeared into Suki’s room and came back out, with clothes on.

Now that Sokka was dressed and no longer glistening, Zuko permitted himself to look at him. Sokka was wearing Suki’s “TAEKWONDO NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP 2016” t-shirt and a long flannel skirt, presumably also Suki’s. Huh.

“My thighs,” Sokka said, as though that was supposed to make any sense.

“Totally,” Zuko replied, nodding.

There was a moment of silence.

Then, “So, your research is remote?” Zuko asked. He thought he’d heard Sokka talk about working under a PI, but maybe they didn’t actually work in the same physical lab.

“Three days a week,” Sokka said.

Suki’s tshirt was just a little too tight around Sokka’s shoulders and chest. Sokka wasn’t broad by any standards, but he had filled out some since his gangly teenage years. Zuko wondered if it would be polite to offer one of his own shirts, but that would almost definitely make the situation weird. Also, Zuko wasn’t so much bigger than Suki, so it probably wouldn’t make a difference anyway.

“Cool,” Zuko said. “You can just set up wherever.”

Sokka took the couch, rearranging the cushions around him and kicking his feet up on the coffee table with his laptop on his lap, but every hour or so he would stand up and move to a different spot in the apartment. It was nice having Sokka in the space, shifting around in the background. Having another person in the room reminded Zuko to sit up straight and not spend the whole day hunched over his laptop. It was good for him.

When Suki came home, she smiled at Zuko and Sokka, who were both sitting with their laptops open at the dining room table. She walked over, kissed the top of Sokka’s head and gave Zuko a little head scratch with one hand.

“Thanks for babysitting,” she joked.

“You’re welcome,” Zuko and Sokka replied, at once.

The next day was a Saturday. Suki and Sokka slept in, and Zuko woke up early enough to make eggs. They didn’t turn out great—a little rubbery—but he tried not to beat himself up about it. When Suki and Sokka emerged from Suki’s room, Zuko pointed at the three plates on the dining room table.

“Good morning,” Zuko said.

“Oh my God,” Sokka said, sitting down and digging in. He turned to Suki, “can we keep him?”

Suki laughed, dousing her eggs with soy sauce.

After breakfast, Sokka insisted on doing dishes, while Suki leant back in her chair and closed her eyes.

“God, I’m so tired,” she said. “I kind of want to go straight back to bed.”

“You can, if you want,” Zuko replied.

“No.” She sat up straight and stretched her arms. “I’m going to power through. Let’s watch _Chopped_.”

Although Zuko was relieved Suki wanted to hang out, instead of leaving Zuko and Sokka to their own devices, he was a little concerned about her. He knew her job at the newspaper was stressful, but he’d never really known Suki to be… stressed? She’d always been too smart to worry about her grades at school. Maybe things were different at her job. It was a prestigious newspaper after all.

On the couch, with the soundtrack of kitchen knives and dramatic music, Zuko looked at Suki. She was watching the television with a small frown. Maybe she was lonely. Suki was always so popular and extroverted in high school, and it always sounded like she’d had a lot of friends at college. Apart from him and Sokka, Zuko didn’t really know who she hung out with these days. He didn’t know what to do about it.

He glanced at Sokka, who had one leg resting on the coffee table and one leg resting on Suki’s lap, totally immersed in the episode. Suki’s social life was none of Zuko’s business. And he was one to talk, anyway. It wasn’t like Zuko could accuse anyone else of being lonely and friendless, let alone Suki.

After a day of cooking shows and takeout, Sokka’s roommate texted to say that the air conditioning had been fixed. Suki and Zuko both ended up seeing Sokka to the door.

“You are always welcome to work here if your air conditioning breaks again,” Zuko said, as Sokka put on his flipflops.

Sokka looked up at Zuko with a smirk. “And what if the A/C is working?”

Zuko flushed. “Then you are still welcome to come.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“Yes,” Zuko said, ears burning.

Sokka grinned his classic Sokka grin. "Then I’ll see you Monday.” He leant over to peck Suki on the mouth, before leaving.

After closing and locking the door, Zuko turned to Suki.

“Is that okay?” he asked. 

“Is what okay?”

“That I invited him over without you around,” Zuko said.

Suki looked at him, dead-pan. “I am literally begging you to have a friend who isn’t me,” she said.

Zuko blinked. “Even if that friend is…”

“A Whitecaps fan?” Suki asked, innocently.

Zuko snorted. “Fair enough.”

Starting Monday, Sokka started coming over on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, staying over at least two nights a week. The silent schedule worked well for Zuko. He was getting used to friendship in moderation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh i forgot to mention that the fic's title is from a mitski song and the series title is from a phoebe bridgers song >:) but you probably all knew that


	2. Chapter 2

Sokka was pacing around the living room. It was a Wednesday in mid-July, and the air-conditioning unit in the apartment was whirring like a motorcycle engine. Zuko was sitting at his laptop, trying to figure out if it was possible to translate a phrase into English. Sokka had closed his laptop and was walking around the room, hands on his hips, occasionally scoffing. He’d been doing this for at least ten minutes.

“Huh!” Sokka said.

It was getting very distracting. Zuko continued to read through someone else’s translation of the phrase into French, which he did not speak.

“Well?” Sokka demanded.

Zuko looked up from his screen.

“Well, what?” he asked.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what’s wrong?” Sokka said.

Zuko closed his laptop. “What’s wrong, Sokka?” he asked, dutifully.

“What’s wrong?!” Sokka repeated, emphatically. “What’s wrong is that my bullshit fucking PI messed up the spreadsheet without telling me and now all my cells are mashed around and I can’t even tell this week’s results from last week’s because none of the columns make any bullshit fucking sense anymore!”

“Oh,” Zuko said. “That’s rough.”

“And Katara and my dad are back in Yakutat for the summer and Celebration was this June and I missed it and it only happens every two years and who fucking knows where I’ll be in two years?”

Sokka had stopped pacing and was just standing, wringing his hands at Zuko. Zuko felt like maybe he should stand up, just to match Sokka’s energy.

“You don’t think you’ll stay in Chicago after graduation?” Zuko asked. He’d always thought that’s what Sokka would do, that’s why Sokka left—to be in the Midwest and far away from the east coast and all its unlucky inhabitants.

“Fuck if I know,” Sokka exclaimed. “Like, don’t get me wrong, I love this city, but sometimes it gets so hot and humid here it feels like I can’t breathe.”

Zuko frowned. He couldn’t help but feel like Sokka was trying to leave again. He was so ambitious and capable. No place was ever going to be good enough for him.

“I’m just so fucking homesick,” Sokka said, finally. “You know I haven’t seen my dad since I started college?”

Zuko felt annoyance pinch the back of his neck. He scowled and looked up at Sokka. “I haven’t seen my dad since I was sixteen,” he said, bluntly. “You’re not special.”

Zuko watched Sokka’s eyes widen in shock. He felt a terrible pang of satisfaction.

Then, Sokka’s face fell. He sighed.

“Fuck you, man,” he said. He sounded tired.

Zuko felt his mistake in his whole body. It made his teeth hurt. Sokka was still watching him, eyes lidded with disappointment. Zuko didn’t know what to do.

He left the apartment.

Every time Zuko said or did something awful (which was often), he always felt oddly relieved afterward. It was almost liberating, no longer caring whether he was a good person. Sometimes it felt like horrible was Zuko’s base state. He sunk into horrible like an old armchair. Horrible was his home.

After Zuko had been walking for some time, he reached a highway and realized he’d walked in the direction of the lake. He took a footbridge over the highway and walked to the edge of Lake Michigan.

It was strange to think of such a large body of water next to a city like Chicago. Around him, people were picnicking on the rocks and even swimming in the water. It was a hot, hot day.

When he reached the edge of the water, Zuko wanted to do something dramatic like jump in with his clothes on or smoke an entire packet of cigarettes, but there were so many people around and he didn’t have any cigarettes, so he just did nothing and felt stupid about it. He was the worst person in the world, but he didn’t even feel comforted by it.

He thought about Sokka and ached.

_Thursday, July 22nd_

_Zuko: I know you don’t like it when I apologize too much, but I think I owe you one this time. I’m sorry for making every conversation about me. I get stressed when people around me are upset, so sometimes I take out that stress on them, which isn’t fair. I’m working on it._

_Sokka: thanks. i appreciate the apology_

_Sokka: i’m glad you’ve figured out what the deal is and that ur working on it_

_Sokka: <3 _

_Sokka: also like damn are u like seeing a therapist or something_

_Zuko: LMAO_

_Sokka: lmao indeed_

That weekend, Suki wanted to go to the beach. It was the first time that she wanted to do something outside the apartment during her time off. Although Zuko wasn’t particularly enthused by the idea, he was relieved that Suki had the energy to spend time outside.

It wasn’t far to the lake, but they took a bus to one of the sandier areas. Zuko felt weird wearing his swim trunks on a city bus, like he was doing something illicit, even though he was wearing a tshirt. Like Zuko, Suki was wearing Tivas and she knocked their feet together, Velcro straps scratching against each other.

Sokka was already at the beach when they got there, sitting on a large, black picnic blanket.

“Very somber,” Suki teased, kissing Sokka on the cheek.

“Black is the perfect beach color,” Sokka said, indignantly. “It doesn’t hurt your eyes by reflecting the sun, and any ice-cream spills are absorbed into the abyss.”

“Ice cream,” Suki repeated, with wide eyes.

“I can go get us some!” Sokka said. “I saw a guy with a cart up by the path.”

“Oh, you don’t have to,” Suki said, but she was already lying down on the blanket, stretching her arms up to the sky.

“It’s no problem,” Sokka said. “Besides, Zuko will keep me company.” He looked at Zuko and smiled. Despite Zuko’s nervousness, Sokka’s smile was infectious. Zuko smiled back.

At the ice cream stand, they got three plastic-wrapped chocolate ice-cream sandwiches, Sokka’s recommendation. Zuko opened his on the walk back. The chocolate was glistening with condensation.

“Are we cool?” he asked Sokka.

Sokka looked at Zuko with a serious expression. “Zuko, I don’t know who lied to you and told you you were cool, but…”

“Shut up,” Zuko said, flushing. “That’s not what I—"

“Yeah, I know,” Sokka said. He smiled. Zuko didn’t know what to make of it.

He couldn’t tell if Sokka had grown harder to read, or if Zuko had just forgotten how difficult it was to understand him sometimes. Or maybe Zuko just found it hard to understand anybody. How do you ask someone if they’re upset with you if they keep getting upset at you for asking?

“Do you remember when we were best friends?” Zuko asked, instead.

Sokka paused. He turned to look at Zuko. “Of course,” he said. Then, almost sadly, “I remember everything.”

Suki had brought a bottle of white wine. She was lying on her side on the picnic blanket, holding the bottle with both hands like she was presenting it to Zuko and Sokka when they walked over. Sokka laughed and crouched down to kiss her neck. Suki squealed and pushed Sokka away, also laughing. Zuko stood at the edge of the picnic blanket, quietly witnessing their affection.

“We brought you ice cream,” Sokka said, dangling one of the ice-cream sandwiches in front of Suki’s face.

“Fuck yes,” Suki said, grabbing the sandwich.

Sokka kissed her again on the cheek, then opened his own ice cream.

Zuko sat down on the corner of the blanket and crossed his legs, and took another bite out of his ice cream.

When the ice cream had been eaten and the packets licked clean, Sokka and Suki stood up to go swimming.

“Coming with?” Suki asked Zuko.

Zuko shook his head. “I’m okay,” he said. “I’ll watch your stuff.”

They shed their clothes, Suki leaving hers in a pile, Sokka folding his, and ran into the water, shrieking and whooping. Zuko leaned back and watched his friends tackle each other into the waves, sun glittering on the lake. He took a sip from the bottle of wine Suki left behind. He watched the lines of Sokka’s body curve toward Suki’s, like a question mark on a page. He felt unbearably, cursedly happy. He took another sip of wine and closed his eyes.

When he opened his eyes, Suki and Sokka were back on the picnic blanket. They were giggling and passing the bottle of wine between them. Zuko smiled and stretched out his hand for the bottle.

The morning lazily turned into afternoon. The bottle of wine became empty. Suki was sitting up on the picnic blanket, Sokka’s head in her lap. She leant down to kiss him on the forehead, then turned to look at Zuko, who suddenly felt guilty, like he’d been caught watching something he shouldn’t have. She smiled, then leaned over to kiss Zuko, softly, on the cheek.

Sokka sat up. He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, then kissed Suki’s cheek, before leaning over and kissing Zuko on the cheek as well.

Zuko didn’t know if it was the kisses, or the wine, or the sun, but he felt his face start to burn. He looked at his two friends who were looking back at him with such earnest and joyful expressions. He felt so good it hurt.

I don’t know why everyone complains about third-wheeling, Zuko thought, dreamily, dizzily. I’m having the time of my life.

_Monday July 26th_

_Sokka: hey so my roommate is gonna be out of town next weekend. do you want to come over for dinner on saturday?_

_Zuko: At your apartment?_

_Sokka: yeah_

_Sokka: feels weird that i’ve seen where u live like a billion times and u haven’t seen my place yet_

_Zuko: I’d be happy to come over_

_Sokka: !! <3 :)_

_Zuko: Will the air conditioner be working?_

_Sokka: lmao_

Zuko was stressed. He tried on three different shirts before settling on one to wear to dinner with Sokka. It’s not a date, he thought to himself. It’s not a date. He glared at himself in the bathroom mirror. Why was he so obsessed with what he looked like? Sokka was dating Zuko’s roommate and Zuko was insane. It wasn’t a date!

He took the bus and listened to a playlist Mai had made him to calm himself down, but the music just made him more fidgety and insane. By the time he reached Sokka’s apartment building, he had to take a minute to breathe slowly, in and out, in and out. The cicadas were jeering from the trees.

Zuko pressed the doorbell, which made a sound like a bug zapper. Sokka opened the front door, wearing a Hawaiian shirt that was barely buttoned up.

“Zuko!” he exclaimed.

“Sokka,” Zuko replied. He could feel his own sweat on his neck.

“Come on in,” Sokka said, opening the door wider. He led Zuko down a corridor to his apartment. It was much tidier than Zuko and Suki’s apartment but was about the same size, with the front door leading directly to the living room. Sokka led Zuko to the kitchen, which smelled warm and sweet.

“The salmon’s about to come out of the oven in two minutes,” Sokka told Zuko, turning his attention to a small pot of dark sauce on the stove. “While it’s resting, I’ll sauté the greens, which should take about six minutes, and then we’ll be sitting down to eat in a flat ten.”

Zuko nodded.

“Do you want some wine?” Sokka asked, opening the fridge for a bottle.

Zuko nodded. When Sokka had poured them both glasses, he remarked, “When did we get old enough to drink wine with dinner?”

“Well,” Sokka said, putting a finger on his chin in mock contemplation. “It all started when I turned 21—”

“You know what I mean!” Zuko interrupted. “It feels like we should still be drinking vodka shots out of the lid in your dad’s vegetable garden.”

Sokka smiled. “Time does what it does, doesn’t it?”

Zuko snorted. “What?”

“It passes,” Sokka said. Then he opened the oven to take the salmon out. 

They ended up each drinking one glass of wine with dinner. Zuko clasped the stem of his wine glass, feeling the condensation against his fingers. Moderation, he thought. I am learning to accept things in moderation.

Sokka sat across the table from him, Hawaiian shirt gaping in the air conditioning breeze, dark hair falling over one shoulder. Moderation, Zuko reminded himself. You can look at him, but not too much. You can want him, but not too much. The salmon was pink and soft under his fork.

It was delicious, like everything Sokka cooked. Teriyaki sauce sweet on his tongue, Zuko frowned.

“Sokka,” he said. “You know you don’t always have to cook Japanese food for me, right?”

Sokka looked taken aback. “Oh!” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—"

“No,” Zuko said, shaking his head. “I mean, it’s nice and it tastes amazing, but you can cook whatever you want.”

“Oh,” Sokka said again. “Well, with Suki—"

“And I’m sure Suki would agree with me,” Zuko interrupted.

Sokka chuckled. “Yeah, she does tend to,” he said.

“I always liked meals at your house,” Zuko continued. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to cater to what _I’m_ used to.”

“You only liked meals at my house so you and Katara could bully me about my paper mâché solar system,” Sokka accused.

Zuko bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing, remembering the crumpled balls of paper held together by duct tape and bent clothes hangers. “I didn’t bully,” he said, with a straight face.

Sokka laughed. “You’re such an enabler!” he exclaimed.

“How am I an enabler?” Zuko demanded. “I’m literally telling you that you have the freedom to cook whatever you want.”

“So, what, you want me to stop making you nice ass salmon?” Sokka replied, indignantly. “You want me to make you frozen pizza?”

“No, of course not,” Zuko replied, hotly. “I’m lactose intolerant.”

Sokka stared at Zuko, mouth open in confusion. Then he started laughing, leaning back so his shirt stretched taut against his chest. Zuko let himself have one moment of unabashed staring, before he joined in, his and Sokka’s laughs filling the room like smoke.

After dinner, Sokka dumped the dishes in the kitchen sink and refused to let Zuko wash them. Instead, he and Zuko went to the living room to “hang out on the couch.” It felt charged, sitting side by side with Sokka, facing the silent television. Zuko felt like he was seventeen and in the passenger seat of Sokka’s car and the whole of New Jersey and the rest of their lives was sprawled out in front of them again. He felt dangerously close to Sokka.

“Do you wanna watch something?” Zuko asked, just to say something, just to have something to look at that wasn’t his ex-boyfriend’s mouth.

Sokka took a moment to respond. Then, “Sure.”

He leaned over Zuko to reach for the remote, while Zuko resolutely stared forward and counted his own breaths. Then Sokka turned on the television to what looked like a nature documentary. He put the remote on the coffee table, then leaned back against the couch and placed one arm around Zuko’s shoulders.

Zuko froze. He felt the warmth of Sokka’s arm across the back of his shoulders, felt its gentle weight. It wasn’t any more physical touch than what Zuko and Suki shared. Hell, Zuko had basically cuddled Suki on the couch last week. On the television, a sea anemone fluttered open.

“Oh, fuck yeah,” Sokka said, watching a large isopod scuttle across the ocean floor.

Zuko didn’t speak. He barely breathed.

Sokka seemed to sense Zuko’s tension. “This cool?” he whispered, still watching the television.

“Yeah,” Zuko whispered back, face hot.

 _Was_ this cool? Zuko felt the furthest thing from cool. He was a mediocre poet who wore Tivas and was too unhinged to date the most unhinged guy at his university. Nothing about Zuko was cool.

His answer seemed to have sated Sokka though, who relaxed into the couch cushions and continued to watch the nature documentary, while Zuko tried to focus on anything except the light press of Sokka’s arm against his neck.

Is this what it’s like having guy friends? Zuko thought, desperately. Why is it so stressful?

He needed to go back to only hanging out with women. Maybe he could join a convent. Would they let him join a convent?

Sokka shifted ever so slightly. Zuko felt the slight drag of Sokka’s skin against his skin on the back of his neck. It was so thrilling that Zuko felt sick.

Before Zuko let himself do something stupid (like kiss Sokka), he wriggled out of Sokka’s embrace and shuffled further along the couch so they were no longer touching. He felt the absence of Sokka’s touch like it was a second skin.

There was a moment of silence.

Then, “Is everything okay?” Sokka asked, hesitantly.

Zuko flushed. “Yeah,” he said, not looking at Sokka, willing his heart to stop pounding. “Just… physical contact, you know?”

Thank God for the excuse of childhood trauma.

“Oh,” Sokka said. He sounded sheepish. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” Zuko said, still not letting himself look at Sokka.

Sokka snorted. “You look like you’re about to jump out of your own skin,” he said.

“Fine,” Zuko snapped, turning to look at Sokka. “Yes. I’m uncomfortable. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Yes!” Sokka exclaimed. “Well, no. I don’t want… Did I do something wrong?”

He was looking at Zuko with such a guilty expression that Zuko groaned and put his head in his hands.

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Zuko said into his hands. “You’re just… I’m… You’re attractive and in my space and it makes me…”

On the television, the narrator explained the mechanics of continental drift. Maybe Zuko could just sit here with his head in his hands for the rest of the evening and escape when Sokka eventually fell asleep.

“Oh,” Sokka said. “I’m sorry if I misread something.”

Zuko frowned. “Misread something?”

“I thought you were… Never mind.”

Zuko slowly raised his head. “You thought I was what?”

“I thought you were… interested,” Sokka said. He was looking down at his hands, like he always did when he was nervous.

“Interested… in you?” Zuko asked.

Sokka flushed. “Yeah,” he whispered.

Zuko felt like he’d missed something in this interaction. There was some social cue or piece of information that he’d skipped over. It was like he’d missed a stair, and now he was in the split-second between his body and reality, stomach swooping as he tried to catch up with the conversation.

“You’re dating Suki,” Zuko said. He didn’t know what else he could say.

“It was her idea,” Sokka said.

“Her idea to…?”

Sokka sighed. “Holy shit, okay,” he said, looking up from his hands. He was blushing like crazy now. “Suki noticed that I was spending a lot of time with you and it was cool and great but it was also mind-blowingly stressful because it was starting to make some, you know, well, old feelings resurface, but Suki said she was cool with it if we wanted to hang out. You know. You and me. In a romantic way.”

Zuko was speechless. He just gaped at Sokka, whose blush had spread down his neck and across his chest, making his freckles stand out.

“Wow,” Zuko said, finally. “You really do have the coolest girlfriend in the world.”

Sokka snorted. “Yeah, I do.”

“So,” Zuko said, wanting to make sure that he’d understood Sokka right. “You’re interested in me?”

Sokka sighed. “Yes.” He didn’t sound happy about it.

“And Suki says she’s okay with that?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Zuko said. He felt oddly empty at this new information. It was like all he was feeling earlier had been sucked out of him and now he was just hollow and tired.

“Are you… interested in me?” Sokka asked, quietly.

Zuko blinked. He looked at Sokka. His long hair, the scar on his eyebrow, the gap in his teeth. Everything about him so effortless and gorgeous and untouchable.

“Can I have some time to think?” Zuko said, finally. “Sorry, it’s just a lot to process.”

“Sure,” Sokka said. His voice sounded hoarse. “Yeah,” he said. “Whatever you need.”

“Yeah,” Zuko repeated. “I’m just gonna…” He stood up and walked over to Sokka’s front door. “I’m sorry.”

Sokka smiled, sadly. “Stop apologizing, Zuko.”

“Okay,” Zuko said. Then he left.

Once in high school, Sokka had told Zuko that most of an atom was nothing. That most of anything was actually nothing, scientifically, and even when you touch something, there’s still a small gap of nothingness between you and it.

“You can’t feel it though,” Sokka had said. “This is on a particle level, and it doesn’t affect us.”

But Zuko felt it then, on the bus ride home, that nothingness between him and everything. The chasm between his skin and the world felt like it was only growing bigger.

When Zuko got home, Suki was sitting on the couch in her bra and boxers, eating what looked like spaghetti bolognaise with chopsticks. It surprised Zuko so much that he stopped in his tracks in the living room, instead of heading to his bedroom to stare at the ceiling, like he’d been planning.

“What are you doing?” he asked Suki.

“We ran out of clean forks,” Suki said.

“Where are your clothes?” he asked.

“I ran out of clean clothes,” Suki said. “I didn’t realize you’d be back so early.”

“Yeah,” Zuko said. His stomach hurt. “I… I left early.”

Suki looked up at him with a cautious expression. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

Zuko opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again to say: “Did you tell Sokka he could date me?”

Suki’s face fell. “Zuko, I—"

“Did you?” Zuko asked, horrified at his voice’s sudden high pitch.

Suki put down her bowl of pasta on the coffee table. “Yeah, I did,” she said. “I’m sorry, I thought... Are you okay?”

Zuko blinked. “I don’t know,” he said, truthfully.

Suki nodded. “You know, I told Sokka I’d be okay with him asking you out, but you don’t have to date Sokka. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Zuko snapped.

Then, to his absolute outrage and humiliation, he felt himself starting to cry.

Zuko never cried in front other people, let alone people he knew and respected. The last time he cried in public was when Azula graduated high school, and that was mostly because Iroh was weeping next to him and Zuko was never able to keep it together when Iroh started crying.

“Oh no,” Suki said. She sounded about as confused as Zuko felt. “Uh, can I hug you?”

Zuko wanted to scream. Instead, he sighed and said, “I don’t know but you can try.”

Suki stood up and wrapped her arms around Zuko. After a moment, he put his arms around her as well, her bare back warm against his hands.

“You know, whatever happens between you and Sokka, I’m always going to love you, right?” Suki whispered. “That’s never going to change.”

Zuko felt another tear trickle down his cheek. “I love you too,” he said. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

Suki reached into Zuko’s hair to scratch the back of his head. “It happens to the best of us.”

“No, seriously,” Zuko said, as another tear slid down his cheek. “This is weird. I really don’t know why I’m crying.”

“Oh,” Suki said. “Well, that’s okay. Do you want to watch me eat this pasta until it’s over?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Suki and Zuko spent the next day together. It had been a while since they’d gone out together, one-on-one, and Suki wanted to see one of the city’s botanical conservatories. At Suki’s suggestion, they both left their phones at home.

At the conservatory, they sat on a bench in the fern room and watched a turtle sunbathe on the rocks, shell gleaming in the sun.

“So, I’m thinking of starting a union,” Suki said.

“Oh, cool,” Zuko said. “At the newspaper?”

“No, at my _other_ job,” Suki said, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, at the newspaper. I’ve been reading a few articles about some magazines in New York and Seattle where the junior staff have been starting unions, and there seems to be precedent for it.” She wrinkled her nose. “I just feel like I need to _do_ something. In college, I did taekwondo and my internship and TAing and all my classes. I need to start doing things again. It’s the nothing that’s driving me crazy.”

“I think you should go for it,” Zuko said.

“Thanks.” Suki tapped her fingers together, conspiratorially. “I need to figure out how to get the other editorial assistants on board.”

Zuko thought about Jet, the way that Jet was able to recruit random people from class, from campus coffee shops, once at a Rite-Aid, to join his organization, just by smiling and talking to them. And being hot. Zuko couldn’t deny the tactic got results. Jet had recruited Zuko in front of the soda machine in the dining hall.

“Have you got to know the other assistants outside of work?” he asked Suki.

“Not really.”

“Maybe you should, you know, spend time with them and get them to like you, so they’ll be interested in what you have to say.”

“Zuko, that’s a great idea!” Suki said. She sounded surprised, which Zuko found a little offensive. “We should throw a party!”

“Oh, I didn’t—"

“What about next weekend?”

Zuko sighed. “Next weekend works for me.”

When they got home, Zuko picked up his phone to see a missed call from Azula. His heart sank. When was the last time he spoke to her? He pressed her contact in his phone and waited for her to pick up.

Almost immediately, he heard his sister’s voice on the line: “Why have you not called me?”

“I’m sorry,” Zuko said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his hand. “I’ve been busy.”

“Lies,” Azula declared. “You’re never busy.”

“I have friends!” Zuko insisted. “Multiple friends, who I talk to daily.”

“I hear you got your heart broken.”

For a wild moment, Zuko thought she was talking about last night. But no, it had really been a long time since they’d last spoken.

“Who told you that?” he demanded.

“I have my sources,” Azula replied.

“Did Mai tell you?”

“She’s a trustworthy source.”

Zuko sighed. “Well, tell Mai that my heart is fine, actually. No complaints here.”

“Shame,” Azula drawled. “I was looking forward to eviscerating the person who’d ruined my brother’s romantic sensibilities for life.”

“Oh my God,” said Zuko. “Nobody is ruining my… Nobody is ruining me for life.”

“Yes, that’s your job, isn’t it?” Azula replied.

“How’s your internship, Azula?” Zuko asked, pointedly.

“Thank God we’re talking about me again,” Azula said. “It’s going swimmingly.”

Azula told Zuko about the other interns, the attorneys, how sunny and nice the weather was. She was working as an intern at a public defender’s office in southern California. The prestige of the office was just impressive enough to be an acceptable use of her freshman year summer. Their father could pass it off as a whimsical romp into left-wing politics, comparable to CV volunteer work, rather than a first step into a real career path in public defense. It sounded like she was having a good time.

“And have you been taking your meds?” Zuko asked, gently.

“Have _you_?” Azula retorted.

“Fine,” Zuko replied. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

“For your information, I have,” Azula said. “I have actually been doing fantastically in the mental health arena. I’m pretty sure I’m winning group therapy.”

“I don’t know if you can do that,” Zuko said.

“Well maybe _you_ can’t.”

Zuko sighed. “Yeah, I’m really not winning any kind of mental health awards recently, myself.”

“Not with that attitude,” Azula said.

“How do you do it?” Zuko asked. “How are you so good at feeling good?”

Azula paused. “Are you bad at feeling good?” she asked.

“Kind of,” Zuko said. “I’m 21 years old, I’m financially independent, I don’t talk to Dad, I can do whatever I want. But I still feel… like this.”

Azula hummed. “Doing whatever you want is only useful if you actually know what you want,” she said, finally.

Zuko frowned.

“Do you know what you want?” Azula asked.

Zuko paused, then chuckled. “How did you get so wise?” he joked.

“I’ve always been wise,” Azula replied. “You just haven’t been smart enough to notice yet.”

_Sunday 1 st August_

_Zuko: On a branch_

_Zuko: floating downriver_

_Zuko: a cricket, singing._

_Sokka: intriguing. say more_

_Zuko: Did you know that haikus in Japanese are traditionally printed on one line?_

_Sokka: i did not know that_

_Zuko: In English, they tend to be printed on three lines, but in Japanese, they’re traditionally printed on one. There’s a lot of math in haikus. A traditional haiku is one breath in two parts, three phrases, and seventeen syllables. A lot of people, English speakers mostly, focus on the number of syllables in a haiku, but what makes the haiku special is the two parts: the setting and the surprise. The branch floating down the river and the singing cricket._

_Zuko: Because the haiku has three phrases, the two parts of the poem are asymmetrical. But that’s what makes it charming. It’s the lopsidedness that makes it work._

_Zuko: Am I making any sense?_

_Sokka: i think so?_

_Sokka: i like that the cricket is singing_

_Zuko: Me too._

That Friday, Zuko helped Suki get their apartment ready for the party. Suki had gone out and bought a bunch of colorful lightbulbs, as well as two strings of rainbow fairy lights. She stood on the couch to tape the string lights to the walls, while Zuko replaced the living room lamps with the new bulbs.

He’d just finished screwing in a blue one, when he turned to Suki. “Do you think I’m a good person?”

Suki paused, then pressed a piece of tape against the wall, before pivoting around on the couch to face Zuko. “Dude, what the fuck?”

Zuko cringed. “I mean, like, do you think it’s okay that I’m like this?”

“Like what?” Suki asked, crossing her arms.

“Sometimes I say horrible things and I wish I didn’t,” Zuko said, looking down at the box of light bulbs.

Suki sighed. “What do you want me to tell you, Zuko?” she asked, turning around to continue taping up the string of lights. “That it’s okay for you to hurt people?”

“No,” Zuko said, quickly. “I’m not, I’m sorry—"

“I’m not going to tell you that it’s okay,” Suki continued. “But I think it’s going to be okay.”

“You really think that?” Zuko asked.

“Yeah. I do.”

Zuko paused. “And what if it isn’t?”

Suki shrugged. “Then you just have to work harder.”

She jumped down from the couch and looked up to where she’d hung the lights. They cast colorful circles of light against the white wall. “Now, doesn’t that look nice?”

Sokka arrived late to the party, which Zuko found odd because Sokka was generally chronically early to events. Suki’s coworkers had already arrived and were milling around in the living room and kitchen, drinking and chatting, while Suki’s playlist played through speakers on the TV stand. Zuko had offered to help with the playlist, to which Suki had replied: “That’s sweet of you, Zuko, but I want them to _like_ me, you know?” So Zuko stayed out of the playlist and in his room, until Suki knocked on his door and dragged him out into the living room to socialize.

When Sokka arrived, he went over to Suki, who introduced him to the group of girls she was talking to. Sokka seemed to make a joke because the whole group started laughing.

“Are you the boyfriend?” someone asked Zuko.

Zuko turned to see a girl standing next to him. “Sorry, what?”

“Suki’s boyfriend. Sokka, or something.”

“Yeah, no,” Zuko said. “I’m just the gay roommate.”

He looked back at Sokka, and was surprised to see that Sokka was looking right back at him. Zuko felt his mouth curl into a smile. Sokka smiled back, before turning away to continue to talk to his group with animated gestures and a wide smile.

He looked nervous.

The realization gripped Zuko. Sokka was nervous. Maybe he’d been nervous this whole time, even in high school. Zuko had always thought that Sokka was this incredibly capable, sociable guy, which he was, but he’d never thought that Sokka might be nervous in social situations.

He watched Sokka’s hands tremble during an exaggerated gesture and felt something akin to awe.

Things had become different between him and Sokka, and he couldn’t tell if it was because Sokka had changed or if Zuko had just become better at noticing things, at noticing him.

They went out to the wooden fire escape at the back of the apartment for some air, which was ridiculous, since outside was just as warm and humid as the party.

Sokka leaned against the railing, looking out at the dark alleyway. His hair was in one thick braid that he’d tossed over one shoulder. The purple light from the party spilled from the doorway and over Sokka’s back and shoulders. He was breath-taking, and Zuko was never going to get over him.

The cicadas buzzed in the trees like electricity.

“I idolized you in high school,” Zuko said, skin warm, pulse slow.

Sokka smirked. “What’s not to love?”

“It’s not the same thing,” Zuko said. “Loving and idolizing.”

“Yeah, sorry, I was making a joke.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Zuko said. “I forgive you.”

Sokka laughed, the sound crackling in the air. “And I forgive you for… idolizing me in high school,” he said, still smiling. Still Sokka.

“I didn’t really know how to love someone back then,” Zuko said, seriously.

“We were kids,” Sokka said. His voice was gentle.

“Yeah, we were.”

“Still kinda feel like a kid,” Sokka added.

“You sure dress like one,” Zuko joked.

“Hey!” Sokka exclaimed, eyes wide and sparkling. Indignation was a good look on him.

“I am interested in you, by the way,” Zuko added. He felt his face, already warm from the alcohol and the party, get warmer.

“Oh,” Sokka said. His lips settled in that perfect “Oh” shape.

“Yeah,” Zuko said, tearing his eyes away from Sokka’s mouth. “Just so you know.”

“That’s… rad,” Sokka said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool,” said Zuko. Their faces were so close he could feel Sokka’s breath on his cheek. “So, are we, like, gonna kiss or—"

“You’re a real romantic,” Sokka said, laughing. “Did anyone ever tell you that?”

“All the time,” Zuko tried to say, before his mouth got crushed by a kiss.

Was it familiar, Sokka’s lips against his? In a way, all kisses are familiar, Zuko thought. I’m still me, always, in my body, always. But some kisses feel more familiar than others. Some kisses feel like home. No, some kisses feel like stepping outside and smelling the summer, even after a year of forgetting that the seasons had a smell.

The party rumbled on in the apartment. Zuko and Sokka stayed on the fire escape, kissing, being kissed.

By the time everyone else had gone home, Zuko and Sokka found themselves sitting on the couch, Zuko’s legs over Sokka’s lap. The alcohol had fully seeped into Zuko’s body now, and he was sleepy and warm. Suki shut the door on the last party guest, then picked up Zuko’s feet to flop down next to Sokka on the couch, Zuko’s feet in her lap.

“Did you get them to sign your union cards, babe?” Sokka asked.

“Not yet,” Suki said, grinning and excited. “But I think people had a good time, and a few of them perked up when I mentioned the magazine editors’ union. We’re gonna have a more formal meeting about it next Thursday after work.”

Sokka whooped and threw his arms into the air, making the whole couch bounce a little. “You’re wonderful! You’re amazing!”

“I’m _tired_ ,” Suki corrected.

“Let’s go to bed,” Sokka said, kissing Suki on the cheek.

“Let’s go to bed,” Suki agreed.

“Let’s go to bed,” Zuko repeated, face in the couch cushion. Wait.

“You can join us if you want,” Suki told Zuko, standing up and yawning. “We’re just going to sleep, and I have a queen.”

“Yeah, you do, babe!”

Suki rolled her eyes. “I meant a queen-sized mattress.”

Zuko blinked. “Sure.”

“Sleepover! Sleepover!” Sokka cheered.

Zuko smiled, fondly. How did he get so lucky?

\--

Sokka woke up hot and feeling like he’d lost an arm in the night. He extricated an arm from under a sleeping Suki and sat up, pinching his arm to get some feeling back into it. Suki and Zuko were tangled on top of the sheets, mouths open in deep slumber. Sokka wasn’t usually the first one awake, but he never slept well after parties.

The morning was pale through the window. Sokka slowly eased himself out of bed, trying not to disturb his sleeping friends, and left Suki’s room. He found his phone on the kitchen counter and went out to the fire escape to call Katara. There were several rings before she picked up.

“It’s six in the fucking morning, Sokka,” Katara’s voice grumbled.

“Oh, fuck, I forgot,” Sokka said, face-palming. “I can call back later.”

“No, it’s fine,” Katara replied with an exaggerated yawn. “I’m up now anyway. What’s up?”

“I miss you guys,” Sokka said, honestly.

“We miss you too,” Katara said. “Wish you were here this summer.”

“Yeah,” Sokka said. “I wish I was there too. I wish I could be everywhere at once.”

That was always his problem, wasn’t it? There were so many people he wanted to see, so many things to do, so many places to live. He was only twenty-two, and he felt like he was already running out of time.

“Well, I don’t,” Katara laughed. “Being in multiple places at once sounds pretty confusing.”

“I’m already confused all the time,” Sokka said. “Wouldn’t be that different.”

“You’re literally a rocket scientist,” Katara said. “When people say, _Oh, well, it’s not exactly rocket science_ , they’re talking about _you_.”

“Well, you see, the rocket scientists have a different saying, which is, _It’s not exactly brain surgery_. And then the brain surgeons say, _Well, it’s not exactly Nicomachean ethics_ , and it goes on like that forever, so it turns out rocket scientists aren’t that smart at all. Just a small fish in a huge feeding chain of people who aren’t confused all the time.”

“Now _I’m_ confused,” Katara said. “What are we even talking about?”

“Do you think it’s possible to love two people at once?”

Katara laughed. “Is this about Suki and Zuko again?” she asked. “I thought you already had that crisis.”

“Yeah,” Sokka said. “I mean, no. Well, kind of. It’s not actually about them. It’s about you guys.”

“What do you mean?”

Sokka groaned. “I don’t know. I just feel like the more time I spend away from you and Dad and Lingít Aaní, the more I’m committing to not coming back. I mean, not that I’ve committed to that. I actually have no idea where I’m going to be after I graduate or what I’m going to do and with whom. It just feels like I have to make a decision about my whole life right now, and I don’t know how to do that without hurting people.”

“Is that it?” Katara asked.

Sokka frowned. “What?”

“Sokka, you call me at six in the morning on a weekend, despairing over the fact that too many people like you.”

“Hey!” Sokka exclaimed. “My problems are far deeper and more complicated than that!”

“You don’t have to make decisions about the rest of your life,” Katara said. “Now or ever. You just think you do because you’re a meticulous dickhead.”

“What did you just call me?!”

“Just be where you want to be,” Katara said. “The rest will come later.”

“Hey,” Suki’s voice said from the doorway to the apartment. “Is everything okay?”

“Is that Suki?” Katara asked.

“Yes,” Sokka said, answering both questions at once. Then, to Katara, “I should probably go.”

“Okay,” Katara said. “Love you.”

“I love you too,” Sokka said.

After watching Suki and Zuko make pitiful attempts at cleaning the living room, Sokka decided to take pity on his hungover friends and take them out of the apartment. There was a small nature reserve on the north side that he wanted to show them, a wooded area tucked between the city and the lake. Suki and Zuko grumbled a little at the commute, but they seemed impressed when they arrived—all the trees and brush making a shadowy cove in the summer heat.

“It’s so weird that spaces like this exist in the city,” Suki remarked, as they walked through the trees. “It feels like the wilderness.”

“Does it count as the wilderness if we’re here?” Zuko asked.

“It depends on your definition,” Sokka replied. “But I don’t really believe in the concept of wilderness. Why are we so different from anything else alive here?”

“Because the trees live here and I don’t?” Zuko said, sarcastically.

“But you’re living and you’re here,” Sokka replied.

There was a moment where it looked like Zuko was going to argue, before he just shrugged. “I guess I am.”

They kept walking through the woods until they reached the edge, where the trees met the rocky shore of the lake. It felt like moving from inside to outside, the three of them leaving the woods and entering the sunlight, the smooth flat beach. Sokka looked at the water and smiled.

“Do you miss Yakutat?” Suki asked, quietly.

Sokka turned to her. “Of course. Do you miss New Jersey?”

Suki laughed. “Not really. I guess I miss Changsha? Even though I’ve only been there once. When my mom and aunts talk about growing up there, I feel like I miss it. Can you miss somewhere you’ve only been once?”

“Yes,” Zuko said, suddenly. He was looking out at the lake, the breeze making ripples in his hair. “How else would we miss the past? We’ve only been there once.”

Sokka felt his chest hurt. “I love hanging with humanities majors.”

Suki laughed. “And I love hanging with someone who knows how to work a circuit breaker,” she joked.

“Suki, that’s a haiku!” Sokka exclaimed. He counted the syllables on his fingers: “I love hanging with / Someone who knows how to work / A circuit breaker!”

He looked at Zuko. “Did I do it right?”

Zuko looked back at Sokka, his smile quiet and blinding. “It’s perfect,” he said.

Somewhere, in the woods behind them, a bird chirped. Sokka, Zuko, and Suki stood at the edge of the water, their shadows getting swallowed by the waves.

.恋をせよ恋をせよせよ夏のせみ  
koi wo seyo koi wo seyo seyo natsu no semi

Let’s fall in love,

fall in love.

Summer cicadas.

**Author's Note:**

> please kudos/comment/author subscribe if you enjoyed this!


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